John Francis Bloxam

Who was John Francis Bloxam?

John Francis Bloxam was an English Uranian author and churchman. Bloxam was an undergraduate at Exeter College, Oxford when his story, the Priest and the Acolyte, appeared in the sole issue of the Chameleon: a Bazaar of Dangerous and Smiling Chances, a periodical which he also served as editor. The story details the love affair of a priest and his lover, a boy. The affair, when discovered, triggers the priest's suicide. A poem, A Summer Hour, also with pederastic themes, appeared in the Artist. The contents of the Chameleon, which also included Lord Alfred Douglas' notorious poem Two Loves, would be used against Oscar Wilde in his trial. Bloxam was a convert to Anglo-Catholicism, and became a priest.